Tag Archives: novels

I’ll be reading chapters from my second novel, “Puppet Girl” (now in progress), at the Pueblo Poetry Project, Wed., Jan. 22 at 7 p.m. The reading will be held at the Daily Grind Espresso Bar and Café, 209 S. Union Ave., Pueblo, Colorado.

The Historic Union Street, Pueblo, Colorado, the site of Shadow’s reading.

This will be the sixth time I’ve been the featured reader at the Pueblo Poetry Project, which is in its 35th year. I’ll also be reading poems from my series, “I’ll Have My Way With You, America,” which will be released as a chapbook in the future. Meanwhile, “Puppet Girl” is a sequel to my first novel, “Hell City.”

Joel Scherzer and Robbie Rubinstein, publishers at Quick Books in Pueblo, have published my poetry, beginning with the chapbook, “Harlem River Baby,” which was first released in 1984 (and is now going into its second printing). They also edited “Hell City” and are currently at work editing “Puppet Girl.”

“The Catcher in the Rye” was as singular a novel as the voice of J.D. Salinger, who passed away on Thursday. To my generation – The Who, Woodstock and all that – it was the bible for the disaffected, misunderstood teenager, who was ready to flip from Peter Pan.

Of course, the flipping continued. After high school, there were new discoveries on the road, so to speak, to self-discovery: Kerouac, Ginsberg, Hemingway, Dylan, the Beatles, the Williamses (Tennessee and Hank), the Millers (Henry and Arthur), Lorca.

But today’s youth don’t have time for such protracted processes. As Jennifer Schuessler put it, writing in the New York Times last June:

Today’s pop culture heroes, it seems, are the nerds who conquer the world — like Harry (Potter) — not the beautiful losers who reject it.

Some critics say that if Holden is less popular these days, the fault lies with our own impatience with the idea of a lifelong quest for identity and meaning that Holden represents.

Since the 1980s, I’ve been saddened by the fast-track trajectory of college students. Pressure to choose a gilded career flattened any chance for soul searching during its ideal developmental period. No doubt many college students in recent times have bounced from major to major, from career to career, and have fallen under the wheels of life a few times. Yet something still seems lost in today’s culture.

Nevertheless, I’m convinced there’s something inherent in human nature that seeks its own inquisitive level despite the “so now” pressures and distractions of the times. Our three-year-old grandson, Russell is as spoiled with store-bought toys as many, but I was heartened to see that his favorite play thing of late is an empty chewing-gum box — the best gift his pappy ever gave him.